


and with this ring

by pyrrhlc



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: And I’d choose you; in a hundred different lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.In which Magnus asks an important question.





	and with this ring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talefeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/gifts).



The night is late and dark, like silk, like heavy-hung Candlenights baubles, and Magnus is at peace. The sitting room is warm and bright and comfortable – and for the first time in a long time, so is he. Magnus, after all his searching, is finally at peace.

A glowing orange fire crackles happily in the grate opposite the couch on which he and Julia sit; a couch moulded to the shape of their intertwining bodies and loosely-locked fingers. This room remembers them, even in the fragile grasp of winter. Sat sideways, Magnus pushes his knees up against Julia, sat-crossed legged and poring thoughtfully over the crossword printed between two pages of _The Neverwinter Times_. She taps a pen to her mouth absently as she thinks, mind whirring all the while, then leans in close to scribble in a word. Magnus lays a languid arm against the back of her broad shoulders and watches in delight as a small, gilt-edged smile spreads slowly along the edges of her lips.

“Magnus,” she says, her voice hazy and back-lit, smiling all the while, “What are you doing?”

Magnus ducks his head down into the crook of her shoulder, twisting his head up to look at her as he attempts vainly to hide his own grin. Julia looks back at him through two winter-heavy eyelids, outlined by two smudged lines of kohl and colour. This is his favourite Julia, he thinks. Time-worn. Time-soft. Unguarded and yet still completely aware.

She raises an eyebrow to him as he reaches out to thumb the broad brushstrokes of her chin, demanding an answer. His mouth guided by happiness, Magnus says, “I’m helping you with the crossword.”

“You most certainly are not.”

“I am,” Magnus replies innocently. His voice is a hazy bubble. He stabs blearily at the fourth column down. “What’s that one?”

“Four letter word for selflessness and loyalty,” Julia mutters. Suddenly, her frown breaks. “Oh, I get it.”

“What?”

“It’s love.”

Magnus ducks up his head in faint surprise, dislodging the pen from Julia’s hand. It leaves a faint blue mark on the shadow of her cheekbones.

“Oops. Sorry.”

“Pathetic,” Julia mutters. The smile remains affixed to her face. “You’re _so_ like a dog, Magnus.”

“I am not!”

“Play dead,” Julia says. “Roll over.”

Magnus gladly obliges her, flopping down by her side and leaning his head up against her thigh. In the interim, Julia strokes his hair absently before flicking him with a finger.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Bad dog. Very bad dog. Can’t even play dead. How typical.”

Magnus turns to face her again, his cheeks warmed by the heat of the fire just beyond. He can see the Candlenights lights’ flickering reflections in the very centre of Julia’s eyes.

“Are you done with the crossword?” he asks hopefully, as Julia shifts sideways and folds the broadsheet into two. She caps the pen and sets it down on the arm of the couch, then turns to him with a sigh.

“I suppose I am now,” she says, expelling another long-suffering breath. She squints down at him suspiciously. “Are you really that excited about Candlenights?”

Magnus sits up and looks at her, studying Julia’s high forehead, her heavy eyebrows and wondrous twist of a mouth. His hand fumbles absently for the lumpy object concealed within his left pocket. “I am,” he says, after a moment of hesitation. “I’ve never celebrated Candlenights before.”

“Now there’s something I don’t understand,” Julia mutters. This time, it is she who slumps back against Magnus – a tired heap of cloth and woodsmoke and all things Julia. “You must have celebrated Candlenights before, Mags. You probably just called it something else.”

Magnus thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he says, and then, in a slightly more concerned tone, “I don’t – I can’t really remember. I don’t know why.”

Julia tilts her head and looks at him. There’s something odd and bruised buried deep in the clefts of her face. Something like concern, perhaps. But then, like the tilt of her head, it is gone.

“I don’t think it matters,” she says softly, one hand reaching out to clasp hold of his. Her palms are rough, but her skin is sun-soft as she leans in to kiss him, once, on the cheek. Magnus leans into her, breathing her in. The sweet smell of jasmine perfume and wood shavings, bottled ink and eagles’ quills. A map maker’s scent. Julia smiles back at him and raises a hand to his chin. “This year will be the best. I know that for sure.” She lifts his head up with the tip of her finger. “I have you.”

Magnus feels the corners of his mouth twitch, feels that old smile returning to him in full, and turns properly to face her, brushing away a few strands of wild brown hair from her face as he does so. Julia is the most beautiful thing Magnus has ever seen. In that moment, he knows it instinctively. Julia is the centre of his world, the one person he can never be without. In death, Magnus thinks, all of his atoms will seek to find her. She is the only one he can ever love.

And so, he pulls the small wooden box out of his pocket, and kneels down carefully beside the couch.

“Julia,” he says, looking up at her, his heart wobbling dangerously from within the confines of his throat, fit to burst with the sheer amount of _everything_ it now carries, “Will you marry me?”

Julia stands up from the couch and pauses for a moment. Something like uncertainty – or is that simply his own fear, looking back? – looks out at him from Julia’s dark eyes. Then, voice fraught with emotion, she replies, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, you idiot. Of course I’ll marry you.” She stares down at the wooden ring in his hand as if it is something completely alien to her. As if love, and this gesture, are alien. Magnus’ heart turns an uncertain somersault that is quickly forced back down between his ribs as she leans forward to take the ring from him, slipping it onto her engagement finger. Somehow, Magnus knows she will keep it there for the rest of her life.

She looks up at him. “I love you,” she says. Then she frowns. “You have to get back up off the floor, you know.”

“Why?”

“So I can kiss you.”

And she does. Julia’s lips meet his in an explosion of fireworks, deep evergreens and coral blues that flash behind Magnus’ eyes like the explosions they are. Magnus’ hands are entangled in the back of Julia’s hair, broad fingers brushing against her neck, and suddenly Magnus can feel Julia’s pulse beating frantically between them, as happy and excited as a caged bird finally set free.

 _This is what love should be_ , some deeper, more interior part of him thinks, _this and this and this._

Yes. Tonight is his favourite Candlenights. And not just his favourite.

Tonight is the best.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Candlenights! This fic is for the wonderful [@talefeathers](http://sickburnsides.tumblr.com/) \- I hope you have the most wonderful Candlenights and new year; you deserve the very best! I was very determined to keep this fic happy and I hope I achieved that haha~ You know what they say - Christmas comes but once a year!
> 
> To everyone else reading this: regardless of whether or not you celebrate Christmas, Candlenights or neither, I hope you all have a spectacular end-of-year holidays and a good, long-earned rest. 2017 sucked, but hey, we’re here. No matter how dark and dreary the world gets, there will always be something else to look up and look forward to. So go! Eat turkey! Burn the roasted chestnuts! That’s what the holidays are all about, after all.


End file.
